"We want folks if they lose their job due to no fault of their own, quickly and actively to search for many of the jobs that are available," he said.

"That's what this change encourages them to do. This is about recognizing the reality that you've got a hot labour market here and we should no longer be pretending that this has stratospheric levels of unemployment."

The changes mean people in Whitehorse, Iqaluit and Yellowknife will have to work 700 hours in the previous 52 weeks, up from 420, to collect employment insurance. They will also collect benefits for a maximum of 36 weeks instead of 45.

The federal government is also going to divide each territory into two EI regions: the capital and the rest of the territory.